Celebrities join the battle over California fuel tax

A referendum over weaning Americans off their dependence on oil has divided the state, reports William Kay from Pasadena

BILL CLINTON adopts his most sincere expression as he prepares to deliver the punchline of an advertisement showing on American television. “If Brazil can do it,” he says, “so can California.”

The former president isn’t talking about California winning the World Cup or growing coffee. In a patronising tone, he is pointing out that even Brazil has ended its dependence on foreign oil by switching to ethanol made from its own crops.

It is part of a fight that is threatening to overshadow Tuesday’s mid-term congressional election.

Electors are voting on a plan to tax all oil in California and use the revenue to fund research into alternative energy.

Normally, this is the kind of green dream that would be dismissed as a wacky sideshow to the main vote, which will determine whether President George Bush has a Republican Congress to support him during his last two years in the